Download Elizabeth Williams Reconstruction Essay Through Reconstruction of

Elizabeth Williams
Reconstruction Essay
Through Reconstruction of the Civil War, the Union hoped to bring the South back into the
nation. They attempted to change the Southern ways to eliminate slavery and to promote equality. But
once the Union was trying to change 250 years of a master-slave relationship between the whites and
the blacks. Blacks were treated even worse during Reconstruction (once they became freemen) despite
the North’s attempt to create equality between the two. Reconstruction of the Civil War failed to bring
social and economic equality of opportunity to freed slaves as seen through racial segregation and
discrimination, political restraints, and the lack of economic freedom.
The Union couldn’t change 250 years of the Southern white and black relationship overnight. It
was all they knew to be separated and, therefore, would remain so. Once the thirteenth amendment of
the Constitution was passed, the slaves were free of not only slavery, but also free to be lynched,
mobbed, and put through other types of persecution. When blacks were slaves they were protected by
the fact that they had value as slaves. If a white man hurt another’s slave, he would have to pay
recompense for that slave. But the amendment freeing slaves was passed, stripping the blacks of the
protection of value. Angry white men no longer had to make up for persecuting blacks; therefore, they
took advantage of this and attacked slaves. One reason the whites turned on the freemen was fear.
Whites were afraid of their former slaves. Blacks are the color of darkness—the color of demons, and
since the first slave owners were generally all Christians, they were afraid of the “demons” of the blacks.
After several generations this tradition of fear became rooted in Southern white culture, and when the
blacks were freed whites didn’t have control of them anymore. The freemen had guns, too, after
fighting in both the Union and Confederate armies, causing more fear within whites. To conquer this
fear and to regain control over the freemen, Southerners formed terrorist groups against the blacks.
These groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, attacked the black population. The formation of terrorist groups
and their attacks on freedmen demonstrate the failure of Reconstruction to bring social equality
(equating to race) of opportunity to freed slaves.
Southern whites attempted to put many political restrictions on the freedmen to maintain their
white supremacy. Black codes denied African-Americans the right to testify against whites, to serve on
juries or in state militias, and to vote. In some former slave states, black occupations were limited and
restrained them from obtaining land. They were stripped of their voting rights through the Grandfather
Clause, poll taxes, and literacy tests. With the Grandfather Clause, in order to vote, a man’s grandfather
must have voted and/or been eligible to vote. Obviously no grandfather of a black man had ever
voted—they were all slaves—and, therefore, no black man could vote. When poll taxes were instituted,
a man had to pay a tax in order to vote. Blacks had little or no spare money: whatever money one did
have needed to go towards his and his family’s necessities; therefore, no black man could vote. To vote
when literacy tests were introduced, a man was required to take a literacy test to be able to vote. This
was essential because if a man could read, he was educated. If he was educated, he was able to
understand politics and the current events and history of the US. Before African-Americans were freed,
it was illegal for their masters to teach them to read and write. This meant that by the time literacy
tests were instilled, very little black men were literate; therefore, hardly any black man could vote. All
of these restrictions created de facto versus de jure: concerning law, or de jure, there is no slavery, but
in fact, or de facto, there is. Slavery had been restricted, but all of these restraints recreated slavery
when one views the whole picture. Freedmen were under approximately the exact same rules they had
been when they were slaves; the only difference is that they no longer had owners. The black codes,
restricted voting rights, and de facto versus de jure exemplify the failure of Reconstruction to bring
social equality (equating to politics) of opportunity to freed slaves.
Due to the social failure of freedmen in Reconstruction, the free slaves were hurt economically
as well—they had no economic freedom (the ability to pick jobs and careers). Employers would rather
hire white workers than black, plus the black codes limiting African-Americans from certain occupations.
The 250 years of slavery segregated the blacks and whites, making employers favor their white equals
and hire them instead of freedmen. And even if a black man was hired, his pay would be a great deal
less than what a white man would earn in the same position. This limited the job choice for blacks to
mainly working for their former owners for very low wages by way of sharecropping and tenant farming.
A sharecropper is a farm tenant who pays rent with a portion (in a freedman’s case, a great portion) of
his crop. All of his equipment is provided by his landlord. A tenant farmer is a step up from a
sharecropper; he provides his own tools and has acquired more experience than a sharecropper. If
blacks had migrated to the North, they might have found better working conditions, but the Southern
plantations were their domain—they knew how it worked—so they remained in the South. Clearly the
Reconstruction failed at creating economic equality of opportunity to freed slaves because of resulting
limited occupations, poor pay, and sharecropping and tenant farming.
It is easy to see that the Reconstruction failed to bring social and economic equality of
opportunity to free slaves. The Union couldn’t change 250 years of a “peculiar institution” over night;
the South remained rooted in their ways of white supremacy. The Reconstruction brought segregation
and discrimination as well as political restrains to blacks, causing a lack of economic freedom for the
freemen. Through this it is obvious that the Reconstruction failed in its goal of bringing equality to free
slaves.